Why Singapore bosses must not ditch doing background checks on applicants

A recent survey of 4000 employers in Singapore revealed that most of them had made poor hiring decisions. They estimate that up to 50% of their employees are bad hires.

What this means is that if an organization has 10 employees, it may have between 1 and 5 employees who are not performing to expectations.

In addition, the March 8 2013 issue of "The Daily Stats" by Harvard Business Review reported the following statistics:

•          46% of resumes include discrepancies in job candidate’s employment and educational histories

•          40% of executives lie about their education

•          35% lie about accomplishments or job missions

It further reported that only 68% of employers check job histories and only 42% check educational backgrounds of candidates.

Other surveys have also uncovered similar patterns of deception. For instance:

•          53% of all job applications contain inaccurate information

•          34% of all applications contain outright lies about experience, education, and ability to perform essential functions on the job

•          9% of job applicants listed false employers, or identified jobs that didn’t exist

•          11% of job applicants misrepresented why they left a former employer

(Source: www.hireright.com)

These statistics seem to indicate that deception amongst job applicants is rampant. What is more surprising is that many employers do not perform background checks prior to offering employment to potential candidates.

The Standard Background Checks Don’t Work!

The most common approach to conducting background checks of applicants is to request for a list of character referees from the applicant. The interviewer will then proceed to contact each of the “character referees” on the list, to ask questions such as:

-           In what capacity do you know Mr. A?

-           Have you worked closely with Mr. X?

-           What do you think are his/her strengths and weaknesses?

-           How would you describe Ms Y’s ability to work under pressure?

However this process is not effective because the candidate will only provide the names of people whom he or she works well with.

Uncovering the Candidate’s Key Relationships

How do you get candidates to be truthful about their relationship with their peers, colleagues and bosses? A technique that I have used with great success is what I call the “Flanking Technique”.

The Flanking Technique is akin to throwing a curved ball at the candidate. In military strategy, Flanking is a common technique that is used on the battle field to outfox the enemy. However, it is effective only if there is an element of surprise.

Here’s an example of The Flanking Technique at work during an interview:

Interviewer: Do you work in a team?

Candidate:   Yes, I do.

Interviewer: How many team members are there in your team?

Candidate:  "There are ten, including myself.

Interviewer: Name me ALL the other nine members of your team. Please provide me with their full names. (Note: This is not a question.)

Candidate proceeds to name all members of the team.

Proceed to write the given names (first name and last name) on a piece of paper, or write them on a board in the interview room in full view of the candidate.

Interviewer: Which of these team members do you work most closely with?

Candidate:  I usually work very closely with Thomas. We work very well together.

Point to a name other than the one the candidate works most closely with (in this case, to a name other than Thomas) and ask:

“What would [name] say about you if I were to call him or her to ask about you?”

Then carefully observe the candidate’s facial expression, body language and the tone of voice for any sign of stress or deception.

This is an effective way to encourage the interviewee to be truthful about his or her relationship with the other team members. If done correctly, this technique will help you determine if the candidate is a true team player or if he or she is a person you should drop from your list of potential hires.  

Do you need to call every person the candidate has listed? In most cases you do not have to. The main aim of the Flanking technique is to let the candidate believe that you will call them.

Conclusion

Background checks are important and should not be overlooked. However the standard background checks are usually not effective because they only paint a partial picture of your candidate. Hire the right candidates by performing effective background checks.